


some legends are told

by thimble



Series: SASO 2017 [27]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gladiators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 18:50:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12305463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: My champion, Tatsuya would call him when they're alone in his quarters, their bodies like candle wax, melting into and taking pieces of the other with them when they part.





	1. remember me for centuries

**Author's Note:**

> written for [these](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11889641#cmt11889641) prompts.

There is nothing like the adrenaline of the arena—the sun bearing down on his nape as if it intends for spontaneous combustion, the crowd cheering or jeering in equal measure (depending on who's winning, or how they're winning), the weight of a weapon in his hands as it slices through air, the sound of it cutting deep and hitting bone, and the breath he takes when the gods grant him victory (smelling of metal and sweat, of men exerted to their limits.)

There is nothing like the adrenaline of the arena, and not only because he's forgotten everything outside of it.

He'd led a different life, once, raised in a small town among greenery, summer days spent running in the fields and scraping his knees, and evenings spent weeping as his mother tended to his wounds. Mistakenly, he'd assumed that the rest of his life would follow the footsteps of his father, or any path to normalcy; he had never imagined his village being razed to the ground, that he'd ever be taken prisoner and have the crying boy he once was bled out of him.

He never imagined that he'd have the constitution for survival either, not until he's forged out of iron and blood by force.

Years upon years and countless bodies of his opponents piled high later, he's become one of the best warriors to have ever stepped foot within the oval, and were he on a battlefield instead of a stadium they'd be singing songs in his honor. But glory is secondary, next to the thrill in his veins when he's sent out for a match, a man made entirely of sinew and blood lust.

Will this enemy succumb quickly at his hands, or will they put up a mighty fight? And best of all, will he summon a smile out of Tatsuya's lips, sitting high and lofty in the stands?

Because even the adrenaline of the arena is paltry compared to seeing emotion flicker across that marble face, whose gaze he can feel on his skin even from a thousands feet away. My champion, Tatsuya would call him when they're alone in his quarters, their bodies like candle wax, melting into and taking pieces of the other with them when they part.

He has forgotten his old self, as this crowd will forget him when he, too, meets someone of greater strength. But he needs no one to remember him except for the one that sighs his name on those warm nights, _Daiki_ falling out of that mouth as slowly and as luxuriously as a leaf leaps to its death in autumn.


	2. you look so pretty but you're gone so soon

Daiki is a gladiator, for want or need of nothing but victory in the ring. Freedom is a concept he's long relinquished, deemed as something someone like him can never attain. As long as he can fight, as long as he can win, living another day remains an option. Simple pleasures are as much as he's allowed—thirst momentarily quenched, hunger momentarily satiated, or in the winter, cold bones momentarily warmed by fire. Wanting more than what he has is not only discouraged, but dangerous. Give a gladiator something else to live for and they'd start wanting to live, instead of merely exist.   
  
The carnage, the stadium, the triumph; he tells himself he wants nothing else apart from these, and then in walks Tatsuya, reintroducing to Daiki the very idea of desire.   
  


* * *

 

He's training, a sword in each hand, facing off against no one in particular. Trust is a rarity, not a currency, in this place, and no one trusts him not to forget himself and take a blade to their jugular the way he's done to countless others, countless times before. It's just him, the sun, the swords, until it isn't any longer.   
  
An unfamiliar gaze settles on his back and he spins around, battle ready, only to find himself looking at the most beautiful person he's ever seen. The stranger is accompanied by his master, and he's appraising Daiki not like he would a jewel or a weapon. It's discomfiting.  
  
"He's one of our best," says Daiki's master, speaking as if he isn't there. He's accustomed to that, but the stranger's gaze is what tears him in two, uncertain if he should stay or run far away.   
  
"I've noticed," says the stranger, who is introduced to him as Tatsuya, a noble searching for a representative in the arena. Tatsuya's eyes travel downwards and then up along Daiki's body, an unreadable smile perched upon his mouth. "He'll do."  
  
With that, he turns and leaves Daiki's mouth drier than a city in drought.   
  


* * *

  
  
Tatsuya intrigues him, but the notion of representing anyone but himself or his master doesn't sit well with Daiki, resistant to being owned by another again. There's only so much of him to go around, though all of this goes unsaid, evident only in the fury of his strikes, the brutal swings of his swords.   
  
He doesn't understand why he should fight for someone else's sake until the day he wins and glances up, past the emperor's approval, past the riotous audience, at Tatsuya's smile, no longer as mysterious as before.  
  
This time, behind the pride and the satisfaction, hunger quietly sits, waiting to be sated. That's what the appraisal had been, everything he wants to do to Daiki (or everything he wants Daiki to do to him) woven into a tapestry of depravity on his face.  
  
And then it's gone, Tatsuya's attention claimed by something or the other, and forget winning, forget living at all.   
  
Give Daiki that smile again, and everything that comes with it. Give him this, and the gods can do to him as they wish.


	3. i never meant for you to fix yourself

The first time Tatsuya sees Daiki, it's from a distance. His skin, brown and gleaming under the sun; his movements, swift and merciless; his eyes when he turns to the crowd, as fierce and as cutting as his twin swords. Within Tatsuya's carefully calculated inner wants sprouts one that is unprecedented, a weed among the grain. Having Daiki for his own will do nothing for his status, nor for his ambitions.   
  
And still greed sticks to his ribs, lining the interiors of his heart with it and threatening to cave in the walls unless it's satiated.   
  


* * *

  
  
The second time Tatsuya sees Daiki, Daiki sees him too. It's from closer, now, with him and Daiki's master as his only audience. He's here for a farce, a masquerade—the excuse of wanting a warrior to gamble with, pretending that he has eyes on anyone else. No one would bat an eye at a noble using a gladiator to toy with the stakes, but they would if one expressed the explicit desire to take one for himself.   
  
It's a rare occasion, him doing little to hide said desire on his face as his and Daiki's gazes meet. Daiki may not know of life outside the arena, but he wasn't born yesterday. He ought to know greed when he sees it.   
  


* * *

  
  
The third time Tatsuya sees Daiki, it's from a distance yet again, with Daiki now fighting (and winning) in his name. The fourth and fifth time happen the same way.  
  


* * *

  
  
The sixth time he sees Daiki, it's because he's sought out his quarters, to make certain he's being well-fed, and the like. Daiki is his now, after all, in every way but intimately.   
  
"So this is how you live," he says, glancing around at the sparseness, the simplicity. Daiki watches him, arms crossed, leaning in the doorway.   
  
"Forgive me if it's not up to standard, my lord," says Daiki, dryly. Tatsuya matches his wit, saying, "it will do," in an echo of their first encounter. He will let Daiki wonder what he means when he's gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
The seventh time he sees Daiki, it's past midnight, with the city shrouded in shadow. He brings nothing but a candle and a cloak over his head when he knocks on Daiki's door.   
  
"Would you have me?" he says when it's opened, a peach immediately cored. The  _yes_  is already all over Daiki's face, but first he asks, "do I have a choice?"  
  
"Of course," says Tatsuya, however it hollows him out to say it. "The contract says you must fight for me, not cater to my every whim."  
  
Daiki listens and says nothing more, does nothing else apart from pull Tatsuya inside, setting the candle aside (to free their hands) and tugging the cloak down (to allow their hands to wander.)  
  


* * *

  
  
Tatsuya loses count of how often he sees Daiki after that.  
  


* * *

  
  
The second to the last time he sees Daiki, it's after he has made powerful enemies because of his status, because of his ambitions. Daiki enters the arena and is faced with three opponents, which has never happened to him before.   
  
The audience cheers, the certainty of bloodshed more important than crowd favorites. Tatsuya watches the fight and tries not to let anyone in on the avalanche in his chest. 

 

* * *

  
  
The last time he sees Daiki, it's after he's spared by the emperor, though not even the emperor's word can keep him alive for very long. Tatsuya makes his way past the other wounded, past the dying, and dirties his robes by kneeling beside Daiki on the ground.   
  
"It's my fault," he says, a confession with his hands clasped around one of Daiki's, warm and slick with red. Daiki grins and his teeth are as bloodied as the rest of him.   
  
"Doesn't matter," he says, bringing Tatsuya's hands to his mouth. He speaks against Tatsuya's skin as he had so many times before this, "I would've fought for you, with or without the contract."  
  
"I never asked for that," says Tatsuya, fury and grief each raging a war inside him. "If you'd withdrawn from the match—"  
  
"Not in your name."  
  
"You chose today, of all days, to be honorable?"  
  
Daiki laughs, but his eyes are wet, his face contorted. "I thought I could take them. I'm  _your_  champion."  
  
Tatsuya listens and says nothing more, does nothing more, apart from look at Daiki, taking in his fill, greedy even now, even here.


End file.
